History of the Ojibway People, Second Edition

Introduction

Introduction William W.Warren’s History of the Ojibway People is one of the earliest and most influential books ever written about the people also known as the Chippewa.
It has long been recognized as a classic source of Ojibwe history and culture, a unique and valuable contribution to the study of the American Indian. First published in  by the Minnesota Historical Society,thirty-two years after the author’s death,it has subsequently been reprinted numerous times,always in the original format and with the original notes by Minnesota historian Edward D. Neill. An introduction by W. Roger Buffalohead was added in , drawing attention to Warren’s methodology and some of the problems of the text,without,however,contributing to our understanding of the original work. By writing this history,Warren hoped to save traditional Ojibwe stories for posterity even as he presented to the American public a sympathetic view of a people he believed were fast disappearing under the onslaught of a corrupt frontier population. He knew that aboriginal people had a history that needed to be preserved and that this history was not to be found in documents.He also believed that many of their oral traditions could be substantiated in written records and always intended to compare his work with documentary evidence someday. But knowing that his would not be a long life,he was driven to publish his History of the Ojibway People even before it was ready.A glance at the last two chapters of this text shows that his book,like his life,was unfinished. The availability of documents unknown or inaccessible to Warren makes it now possible to do what he was never able to do: to correlate his writing with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources.Many criticisms of his History have resulted from insufficient information about the time and circumstances under which the book was written. Other criticisms have arisen from contemporary perspectives that do not take into account vii 1. Warren generally used “Chippeway” to force the pronunciation of the last syllable. He sometimes used “Ojibway,” which is merely a variation of the original pronunciation. The U.S.government used “Chippewa,” and many today use “Ojibwe.” Schenck bk p i-xxiv 1-318_Layout 1 5/13/11 10:54 AM Page vii mid-nineteenth-century knowledge and thought. At the same time, some revision has been necessary owing to advances in archaeology and methods of dating, as well as the availability of French and British colonial manuscripts that were unavailable to the author.And finally,recent studies have shed new light on both the author and the history of the manuscript. The Author William Whipple Warren was born in on Michael’s Island (later Madeline Island) in Lake Superior,the eldest son of American fur trader Lyman Marcus Warren and his Ojibwe-French wife,Marie (Mary) Cadotte.Ojibwe was his first language and,in fact,the only language spoken in the Warren household.His earliest teachers were his mother,his Ojibwe grandmother, andherbrotherTugwaugaune,chiefoftheCraneclanoftheChequamegon region.From them he heard the ancient stories used to educate all Ojibwe children, and he grew to know and love the rich traditions the stories imparted. He would one day himself become one of these much-admired storytellers. Warren’s earliest formal education was in the Protestant mission schools for Indian children,first on Mackinac Island (–) and then at La Pointe (–) where he was one of many mixed-blood children learning the rudiments of reading and writing.In ,he accompanied his grandfather Lyman Warren to his home in Clarkson,New York,to attend Clarkson Academy.The following year he entered the Oneida Institute in Whitesboro,New York,a Presbyterian school that aimed to blend a liberal education with manual labor,under the direction of abolitionist Rev.Beriah Green. Here, Warren pursued his studies in the juvenile department, following a course common to the grammar schools of the time,learning the principles of arithmetic, English grammar, geography, and the Greek of Matthew’s Gospel. Warren left the Oneida Institute in  and returned home to La Pointe the following year. His sister Mary wrote that “he had not entirely forgotten the Chippewa language, his mother tongue, but in a very short time would speak it almost as fluently as the English.” Soon,he was sitting with the storytellers,exchanging his recently learned tales for their ancient ones.Later,he would be best remembered at this time as “full of life,cheerfulness and sociability...